Naturally, branding to customers makes sense – without them you have no company. But equally important is the branding activity targeted at your employees and employment candidates. Employment branding has only been around since the early 1990s, but its affect on corporate success cannot be understated.

Optimized enterprises have the benefit of hiring engaged, talented employees because they have discovered the hiring and management efficiencies through employment branding. The long-term implications of employment branding are enormous. Look at tech giants Google, Microsoft and Apple – each one has created a brand that employees want to be a part of. And that has helped their bottom line.

The process starts with attracting quality applicants who recognize the benefits of working for the enterprise, and are energized to perform. The best recruitment activities connect both logically and emotionally with prospective applicants. Reinforcing your employment brand through the candidacy phase supports a candidate’s developing image of the company. Giving potential employees the opportunity to see the brand in action creates a strong bond. By the time they’ve been hired, your employees should desire to contribute to the company brand – to become a part of it.

Consider some of the benefits from a successful employment branding initiative:

• Higher likelihood of matching role requirements with job candidates
• Lower turnover
• Decreased application-to-hire ratio
• Higher-quality candidate pool
• Lower offer rejection rate
• Decreased time-to-fill and cost-per-hire ratios
• More frequent employee referrals
• Higher level of employment engagement
• Greater likelihood of employees becoming brand ambassadors

Your company brand exhibits your mission, values and overall presence in the community. Employment branding provides the mechanism to deliver those attributes to applicants, candidates and employees. Through an effective employment branding campaign, your enterprise may also benefit from increased brand loyalty within its markets. A company that is recognized as a great place to work typically benefits in the marketplace (if leveraged properly).

In order for an employment branding campaign to be effective, it needs to achieve optimal impression. That means it must resonate to prospects, candidates and employees. Ideally, employment branding should:

• Be credible, compelling and connect emotionally
• Marry the customer brand with company attributes of the workplace
• Uniquely identify your organization
• Be authentically aligned with enterprise culture and values
• Is able to speak directly to recruits who will be more inclined to join, be aligned with company values, and likely thrive in the culture

A solid employment branding strategy starts with defining the culture, uncovering hidden attributes, and determining what affects your retention rate. Through employee polling you can get a sense of likes, dislikes and suggestions. Once you understand the non-financial reasons that employees are retained, a branding message can be created to attract similar employee types.